15)

The homeowner. In her home

Seventeen years ago everyone on earth got two messages on flat blue screens made out of light. One was the same for everyone.

[Due to the severe environmental damage which the people of Earth have inflicted on it. A magical aspect to the laws of your universe had been grafted on to balance out the damage. Be assured, however, you can still manage to kill yourselves along with your world if you keep up with your reckless ways.]

The other message depended on the person.

[ Based on your natural tendencies and training. You are now a Copper Rank Level 1 Martial Artist.]

[You automatically receive 1 point of agility, 1 point of health, and 1 discretionary point. You receive Magic strike.]

The Martial Artist part was what I was later told was my class, and the other bits did seem to improve me, except for whatever magic strike was supposed to do. I even learned how to assign the discretionary point later on. Something to make me smarter of course, as the years went by I later wished that I had put it into my health.

It might have kept my career going a few years longer.

Other people’s classes were said to vary from several dozen different basic ones to up to several hundred variations of them. Of course, it turned out that a lot of the variations were just made up by people looking for attention.

After the messages, there were a lot of people panicking, some dire predictions, and everyone was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

And... nothing.

No monsters, other than a few bugs and animals with funny colors that had begun showing up over the last few years. But all they were was a little bigger than normal. And they had "Beast cores", little glowing rocks.

At least according to the internet.

But no otherworldly invasions, no fantastic races of sexy elves or savage little goblins.

And no Dungeons. At least until now.

Other than being able to call up a blue screen that reminded me of my name, class, and level. The last seventeen years for me at least had been… normal.

I had gotten older and my fighting days in the ring as Iris the Pirate had gone the way of my knees. Worn out and painful. I had taught for a while, but several years back it had become just too much work.

And my brain had started to go.

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Since then I had just holed up in the house I had invested in back when I had the money. And then whiled away the years between me and the grave watching fights, action movies, and music videos on the computer.

And trying to keep myself down to only two cats at a time. Right now it was down to just Buttercup, a name my niece had insisted on despite him being a boy cat. That was before me and my sister had that last fight and Ella was no longer allowed to talk to me on the computer or her phone.

Then out of nowhere, I started getting the new blue screens. Which I had to learn how to turn off. Then there was the food appearing out of nowhere, which I had decided to ignore rather than deal with it by having to think.

But then…

All I did was get some raisins out of the fridge.

[ You have entered your first dungeon. “Unnamed dungeon” 1 exp.]

Then,

[ You have killed your first monster in a dungeon. 1 exp ]

[ You have killed your tenth monster of the same type. Title Roach Bane. ]

[ You have killed your tenth monster in a dungeon 1 exp ]

Then one "exp" for entering a dungeon for the tenth time, then for sleeping in a dungeon, then for bonding with a magical beast…

Apparently, you can only turn off some of the notices. But all I wanted was for it to stop. To go back to letting each day just pass me by without having to do anything but let them.

Then the last one hit me.

[ Level up!]

[ You are now a Copper Rank Level 2 Martial Artist.]

[You automatically receive 1 point of agility. 1 point of health. 1 discretionary point. You receive Spinning kick. ]

My mind cleared up a bit as the warm feeling washed over me. More importantly, my knees hurt less.

I liked the whole less pain bit quite a lot.

“Increase health.”

The warmth did its thing again. "Oh daddy, that's the stuff!" Then I began shuffling around in a little dance as Buttercup stared at me like I was mad.

I cackled at him like a crazy old pirate gal. "Spinning kick? Why not?”

A moment later I discovered why not. The second level of the Martial artist class does not in fact, completely cancel out three years without exercise and sixty seven years of getting old.

“Dani.”

My computer Sim responded. "Yes, Captain?"

“Call 911. I think I just broke my hip.”

It turned out to just be a bruise. But at least it was nice to get out of the house.

While I was lying around in the emergency room, then the group ward, I used my phone which the nice young ambulance person grabbed for me.

“Dani. Tell me about dungeons.”

Wow. I didn't think that's where my search history would take me, or that the two points in my health make that sort of thing interesting again.

“No Dani, dungeons with monsters. Like they thought would show up with magic.”

That got me back on track. But whatever was in my house didn't seem like a deep hole in the ground full of death traps and monsters. It did seem to have the rewards, but I hadn’t even killed anything had I?

Other than those roaches over the last several weeks. The onesthat got replaced with pennies. Like the loot that was supposed to appear when you killed monsters from a dungeon. Which I got notices about just before I turned them off.

"Dani, how do I look at notices from those blue screens that I turned off?"

I followed their instructions and… "Wow, that's a lot of cockroaches. Warriors?"

So, the dungeon in my house had been trying to kill me with one or two cockroaches at a time? And what had happened to the pennies?

Why was it filling my fridge with food? Wait, when had I gone shopping last? The cupboard had been full too. And the house had been cleaned, without me doing any of it.

What the heck was going on with this thing?

...could I level up again? Get healthier?

...not if I told anyone about it. They would drag me off along with the rest of the neighborhood. Then whatever happened, I wouldn't be getting anything from it. Hell, they might even lock me up somewhere for what’s left of my life. Or at least long enough to lose any advantage I had gotten from getting a second level.

So, even if it was trying to kill me by way of roaches, and may even come up with something worst. If I could keep ahead of it. Keep getting stronger, healthier, and faster than anything bad it might be planning for me...

It would be worth the risk.

“Well, mateys. Looks like it's time to get back into training."